


radiant energy

by renardroi



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Abuse, Aro/Ace Alana Maxwell, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Queerplatonic Relationships, Roofie/Forced Drugging, kind of but theyre getting better, portrayals of unhealthy relationship stuff, tags updated with story, theyve got a weird relationship but theyre trying, unhealthy eating habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-24 07:06:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/renardroi
Summary: her friend, her partner in crime, her partner, trusts kepler so easily. or perhaps trust isn't the right word. he knows kepler is a liar, manipulative, a murderer, but he trusts kepler to be those things - knows to be careful. as his friend, maxwell can't help but feel he deserves far better a man than kepler, but maybe he doesn't. maybe neither of them do. there are times when she can hardly believe she deserves jacobi as a friend, as a partner.she thinks, hopes, that kepler would share this sentiment but it's hard to tell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [He Knows So Much About These Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530276) by [thought](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought). 



the first time kepler invites her into their cozy little self-destructive coupling, her only warning is that he's inviting them over to his apartment on a tuesday instead of a wednesday. she knew ahead of time that somehow this particular hangout would be different, because that's how kepler speaks - through routine or the lack thereof, but she half-expected for this to end in a mission briefing or something equally dangerous. 

wednesdays go like this: wake up, shower, no breakfast, go to work, code until jacobi drags her out of the lab for lunch, kepler appears 20 minutes into their half hour lunch and doesn't eat, go back to the lab and work on some of the more long term projects she has until late afternoon, when kepler and jacobi both slide into her lab, hand her all of her things, and they leave for keplers apartment. 

kepler can't seem to stomach the mess that she and jacobi let live in their apartments, and besides - it seems like cooking is one of the few things that can eliminate even a little of the tension in the straight line of kepler's spine, and maxwell doesn't even own a steak knife, never mind any of the actual proper tools. so kepler cooks in his well-stocked kitchen, and she and jacobi sit on the couch (her on the left, jacobi in the middle, a small barrier from...well...) watching the news until kepler has them sit at the bar. dinner, and then drinks (virgin for her) or a movie or both. 

well after dark, maxwell leaves. jacobi lingers, like a child contemplating the shadowy forest on the edge of town, not sure if he's tempted to go home to safety or not. or at least, that's what it seems like. maxwell pretends she doesn't know what he'll choose, goes home alone to drink a glass of water, and then sleeps until ten in the morning. 

that tuesday goes like this: wake up, shower, no breakfast, go to work, code until jacobi drags her out of the lab for lunch, kepler appears 10 minutes into their half hour lunch with a peace offering of an apple each, back to the lab and work until late afternoon, when jacobi slides into her lab, hands her all of her things, and the two of them leave for keplers apartment. 

she doesn't ask where kepler is, but jacobi offers a concerning explanation anyways. meeting with cutter, he'll be maybe 15 minutes behind them - jacobi has a key. she doesn't comment on the key, and jacobi does not explain. 

kepler's apartment is strange without him there. it's strange _with_ him there, but somehow without him it seems lonely. too clean, organized. almost unused save the kitchen, the couch, and the bed. wordlessly, she and jacobi both agree to five minutes of snooping. jacobi peruses the bedroom with a familiarity that maxwell very carefully takes note of, before she checks out kepler's bathroom. 

it's too clean, and it's well lit. in the shower she finds a bottle of shampoo without a label that smells too strongly of something. not floral, not woody, not mint, unlike any soap, cologne, deodorant, or shaving cream she's ever been forced to endure, and promptly realizes that this smell - whatever it is, makes up approximately 85% of the distinct scent that is major kepler. she puts the bottle back with a deep frown, eminently unhappy with having this knowledge. 

on a surface level the bathroom seems ordinary, but when she opens the medicine cabinet she realizes that all of the various bottles here are also without labels. idly she wonders if the precaution is for exactly this; subordinates that are too curious for their own good, or if it speaks to a greater paranoia that she almost certainly harbors as well - although she doesn't have the energy to do anything so drastic as this. it's hard to say for sure. she plucks a bottle from the cabinet, the shape and style reminiscent of over the counter pain medication or something equally generic. sure enough, it's half full of small red tablets that she can be fairly confident in identifying as ibuprofen. at least kepler isn't so paranoid as to do anything more than remove the labels. 

the other things she finds in the bathroom aren't half as interesting. two hidden guns, a very very big first aid kit under the sink, and an expensive razor. when she meets jacobi back out in the living room he looks mildly upset, but she's never been good enough at reading emotions so she can't be sure if it's a good kind of upset or bad. she lets him spread out obnoxiously on the couch, while she scans the bookshelf next to the tv. cookbooks, art, culture, and history - a lot of history. most of them are covered in a thin layer of dust save some of the more well-loved cookbooks and one small, unmarked book. maybe it's because she's in a curious mood, but against her better judgement she slides the unmarked book off the shelf, marking where it was with her pinky. 

sticking out from between the book's pages is a torn piece of paper, seeming too unlike kepler to be just a bookmark. sure enough when she carefully opens the book, the paper reveals itself to be a note, with very neat handwriting that says;

> _If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does._

maxwell snorts at the quote, clearly evidence of some foresight from kepler, and flips through the book anyways - which it turns out is not a book at all. a journal, in what looks like italian, but her french isn't good enough to really tell. she shuts the book with a sigh and puts it back where it belongs. jacobi watches her from the couch. 

* * *

when kepler finally catches up, he looks tenser than usual, but he gives a curt greeting to jacobi and maxwell before making a beeline to the kitchen. things go back to routine for an hour or so, news on the the tv and the smell of food and maxwell's hands through jacobi's hair. dinner, sitting in stools that maxwell can spin in, kepler standing over jacobi like a shadow. when they finish eating, they retire to the couch, and kepler sits down first. in the middle. calculated. careful. jacobi sits to his right with a lightly puzzled look on his face, leaving maxwell in her usual spot, on the left. 

they wait very patiently for kepler to put a movie on - or maybe only she is waiting. it's hard to tell. 

after a few minutes kepler finally turns the tv back on, and relaxes into the couch, casually putting a hand on jacobi's neck, and an arm around maxwell's shoulders. it's an odd but not unfamiliar quirk of kepler's, that when he's feeling possessive he draws his subordinate in with a hand on the back of their neck, and the first time he tried it with maxwell she impulsively punched him in the throat. 

jacobi doesn't seem to mind it much, and maxwell has long since stopped trying to complain about it to daniel, trying to warn him that it's not right, but he hasn't lived with the same angry man that maxwell did, so maybe he's too naive or maybe she's wrong. in any case, kepler hasn't tried it on her since - not that he's no longer possessive, but he puts his hand against maxwell's back instead, against her spine, and frequently it makes her skin crawl. but it doesn't elicit the same hair-trigger response. 

they watch a movie, but she's pretty sure none of them are really watching. jacobi shrinks against kepler's side the longer the movie goes on and he's the only one who moves. 

the movie ends, kepler reluctantly gets up from the couch and pours jacobi a drink, maxwell picks up her bag and like usual gets ready to leave, and kepler from the kitchen calls to her. 

"you can stay, if you like," he says carefully, evenly, setting a third glass on the counter. 

maxwell glances between jacobi, still on the couch, looking anxious and trying to hide it, and kepler, behind the bar with three glasses. "do i have to?" 

"no, no." jacobi says very quickly, but clearly disappointed.

"i...can't." maxwell takes her keys out of her pocket. "you know -" 

"- i know." he stands up from the couch finally, and kepler joins him, handing him a drink. 

there's something she's missing in this conversation, but she doesn't know what it could possibly be. but she cant imagine there'd be any reason they'd corner her like this unless they were asking her to do what she'd already told jacobi she couldn't. the idea of her good friend explaining her shortcomings to their boss was disturbing on multiple levels, so maybe he simply hadn't mentioned it. if that were the case she could make kepler the antagonist in this, pressuring jacobi into asking maxwell to join the two of them in their - the -

"stay the night." kepler tells her, sliding closer and putting on that infuriating smile like curled smugness in his mouth. 

against her better judgement, she finds herself frozen in the doorway, kepler putting a hand on the small of her back and inclining his head toward her. this is not what she wants - not from him, and she doesn't want to know where this goes but she trusts...she trusts jacobi with her life. 

she stays, she doesn't drink, but watches kepler coil around jacobi like a snake. and then somewhere around midnight she very cautiously crawls into bed with them, fully clothed and her hand in the pocket of her jeans, holding so tightly onto her keys that it may leave bruises. but kepler does nothing. he does not bite. does not strike. jacobi stays tucked between them, his arm around her waist protectively, and the most kepler does from the other side of the bed is to pat maxwell's arm. she sleeps poorly that first night, but it gets easier. 


	2. Chapter 2

she doesn't figure out exactly what part she plays in this until she's much more comfortable around the two of them, when watching them spoon on the couch doesn't make her feel like an intruder, like an outsider, something strange and unable. she starts to see kepler as something more than a predator, sniffing around at poor daniel who is so clearly the prey.

her friend is comfortable, some of the time, most of the time. her friend, her partner in crime, her partner, trusts kepler so easily. or perhaps trust isn't the right word. he knows kepler is a liar, manipulative, a murderer, but he trusts kepler to be those things - knows to be careful. as his friend, maxwell can't help but feel he deserves far better a man than kepler, but maybe he doesn't. maybe neither of them do. there are times when she can hardly believe she deserves jacobi as a friend, as a partner.

she thinks, hopes, that kepler would share this sentiment but it's hard to tell.

especially when she walks toward the kitchen some evening, up to the bar, because jacobi is less than happy with the news on tv and has wandered away to bother kepler. she finds the two of them cozying up to each other against the stove top and doesn't think much of it besides a vague long-suffering feeling, until she watches kepler's long fingers wrap around jacobi's wrist.

he whispers something maxwell doesn't catch, guiding jacobi's hand towards the stove top, and the hot flame, watching out of the corner of his eye. slowly, carefully. daniel watches as well, a worried line between his eyebrows but doing absolutely nothing to stop the man. maxwell snaps at them, picking up the closest thing to her and hurling it at kepler's head. it's a book, and it misses entirely, but it crashes into the collection of spices next to them and they turn to look at her.

"absolutely not!" she shrieks at them, and winces when she realizes how much she sounds like her mother. she resolves herself, though, even as kepler's momentary confusion is replaced with simmering anger, and stalks around the bar to face them. "no! no, no."

"maxwell -"

"no! jacobi - have some self-respect." turning to kepler, she grabs his arm with one hand and slams the palm of her other hand into his shoulder to emphasize her words. "and _you_ \- no! i don't know who the fuck did this to you but they were an asshole of the worst kind. don't you _dare_ try to - to - _this_ , it's absolutely unacceptable."

maxwell lifts kepler's arm, gesturing angrily at the faded burn scars. she knows she's overstepping boundaries here, and that the fit she's throwing is going to be punished but she'll die on this cross anyways. "and - really, warren - this isn't just a 'don't burn the people you're screwing thing' this is definitely a 'don't burn any people you care about ever' thing."

when she finishes her tirade, there's a heavy silence in the room. no one speaks but she can see jacobi glance at her and then kepler and back at her, looking appropriately admonished. kepler on the other hand is sporting another unreadable expression, watching her and only her as the seconds pass, agonizingly slow. after a lifetime his jaw clenches and he tilts his head just a little, a nearly imperceptible nod, what seems to be a very reluctant concession. maxwell isn't sure what to do with that - it's not at all what she expected but she knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth so she grabs jacobi's hand and pulls him away. he comes willingly.

"we're leaving - right now." she tells kepler pointedly. "we'll see you at work tomorrow, and we'll still come visit next week." very tactfully, maxwell refrains from telling kepler to not freak out, and instead hugs jacobi to her side and leaves - the kitchen, the apartment. kepler doesn't follow, left standing where he's frozen in the kitchen, as she drags daniel back to her own apartment. 

they get delivery food and eat in silence, both reluctant talk about the elephant in the room - her breaking their unspoken rule. but afterwards she hugs jacobi and he falls asleep with his head on her shoulder, while reruns of jeopardy play on tv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a rough chapter wrt their relationship but the next one should be better


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trembling before the machinery of other skeletons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! this chapter has sex in it! it's also like almost as long as the two previous chapters combined so uhh...

the first time they have sex in front of her, it’s mostly on accident - or at least not planned. maxwell and jacobi return from a mission that was just the two of them, kepler too busy running stakeouts on people related to the organization they were digging into and managing the other moving parts of this operation to be in the field with them. the two of them are left to take up the mantle of smash and grab on their own, with little protest.

they’re still all in one piece, no missing parts, no broken bones, and no gaping wounds, but they are both sporting a myriad of unhappy bruises from a run-in with a truck. and tree. maxwell crashed the car into a truck and subsequently the truck into a very big tree (she figures the best way to discourage someone trying to drive you off the road is to drive them off the road first). the worst injury she has a bruised rib from the seatbelt, and jacobi’s more shocking injury was getting a bloody nose from the airbag deploying in his face, but the two of them are mostly...tired.

kepler is unhappy, with them or maybe just in general. despite the blank, impassive expression that he wears during their debrief, both of them can see that he’s alternating between tapping his thumb angrily on the desk and trying to crush a very nice gold-inlaid pen to death. he criticizes how they handled everything, from the wreck to the execution of the driver to what they ate for lunch, but when he’s finished and they start to leave, kepler makes a point to ask them if they know what day it is.

“janua -” maxwell starts to say, before she’s interrupted by jacobi.

“wednesday.”

oh, she thinks. and kepler nods, dismissing them curtly and telling them to _go home_.

maxwell and jacobi both have keys now - to keep them from breaking in, kepler told them - so they catch a cab and drag themselves into kepler’s apartment, collapsing on the couch in a comfortable pile. it’s good, it’s warm, and probably safe for the moment. so it’s very easy to breathe a little deeper and sleep.

* * *

she wakes up before jacobi, much much later, her arm numb because daniel’s been sleeping on it and with the distinct feeling of wanting to claw her skin off because she can feel the layer of grime on it. so she pries herself free and escapes to kepler’s bathroom.

nothing much has changed in here since she started staying over. jacobi has a toothbrush, there’s a stungun in the cupboard, but everything else is the same. it’s familiar now, or close to it. even so, maxwell undresses slowly, hoping that if she takes her time, like wading into a pool instead of jumping in, that the feeling of being horribly exposed while she’s naked in an apartment that does not belong to her will fade. instead it leaves her feeling exposed _and_ cold.

kepler interrupts her reverie, opening the door without knocking. maxwell didn’t even realize he was home, let alone going to barge in, but she doesn’t have enough time to be shocked or upset because while the door is still swinging open he’s wrapping a very big, very fluffy towel around her, covering most of her up. he closes the door behind him.

maxwell jumps very quickly to nervous conclusions; first that he’s here to admonish her for something, for being presumptuous or reckless or something else that she’s missed, and second that he’s here for something much worse and much more. she takes a deep breath, in direct defiance of her own anxieties, as kepler points her towards the bathroom mirror and stands behind her.

he’s still wearing the same blank expression as he had in debrief, but in something of a gesture he very slowly puts his hands out where she can see them, flat like he’s presenting food to a horse and doesn’t want to get bitten. the mirror - his hands - it’s for her, probably.

he greets her, finally, “maxwell.”

“sir,” she says in reply, trying to sound more sure than she is.

kepler shifts, moving his hand to grab her wrist, his cheek pressed against her temple, and he lifts her left arm to inspect it. her poor arm is a little battered from being flung against the window by the airbag, covered in purple. despite the fact that she’d already been examined by medical professionals, kepler runs his fingers over the bruises and - it seems - double checks to make sure that nothing’s broken. he doesn’t linger, quickly and clinically turning his attention to the cut on her jaw, and then the line of bruises from her shoulder down, making some kind of catalogue in his head with the number of injuries and how bad. very politely, he doesn’t go further than the line of her towel.

“dr. maxwell. the next time you feel like totaling the vehicle you’re in, i suggest you _steal_ something. i won’t be permitting an extraction - because you _wrecked_ your _ride home_ \- a second time.” he reaches past her to pull a bottle of something out of the medicine cabinet, and then steps around her, over to the shower. “you can walk home.”

maxwell _had_ considered boosting something after the fact, but being stuck on a two lane highway in the middle of nowhere made that a bit tough.

"that right there is for you." he gestures to a bottle in the shower, and he says _you_ like he means don't use _his_ things, but maxwell's never trespassed on his dumb soap so she knows it's just a way to say 'i thought of you and bought this' without admitting to weakness.

"what is it?" like everything else in here it, it doesn’t have a label.

kepler raises an eyebrow at her. "it's... _soap_."

" _yes_ , but -" she punches his shoulder in mock anger and tries not to flinch when he narrows his eyes. "- but what kind? like shampoo or -"

"yes."

"conditioner? oh -"

"yes, that too." he looks particularly pleased with himself as he says this, crossing his arms and smiling smugly.

"great. more time to enjoy wasting water i don't have to pay for," maxwell mutters under her breath as she steps into the shower, sliding the curtain into place behind her so she can finally discard the towel on the bathroom floor.

she hears kepler clear his throat pointedly, and hang the towel on a rack before turning to leave. he pauses in the doorway. "and maxwell?"

"mhm - i mean - yes?"

"if you _ever..._ get jacobi killed because of your actions..." he doesn't finish the threat, for whatever reason but maxwell understands how serious he is, regardless. maxwell laughs as she turns the water on.

"yeah. yeah, ditto," she calls after him.

the shower is nice. she gets a chance to wash her hair for the first time in a week and a half - which had been due to poor planning on her part; usually her curls hold up with a handful of days in between washes but that long and while on a job means her hair has definitely seen better days. although, admittedly being able to wash her hair won't stop her from shoving all of it into a ponytail and ignoring it.

when she finishes, maxwell leaves her dirty clothes in the bathroom, slipping past kepler and jacobi speaking on the couch so that she can raid the closet. she borrows frequently from jacobi, sweaters and clothes he can’t wear anymore, but she's only once borrowed a jacket from kepler, so spitefully pulling down one of his freshly dry-cleaned button-ups still leaves her with a pit of dread in her stomach.

it fades a little when she steals his underwear as well, somehow calmed by being as insufferable as possible.

she emerges from the bedroom clad in the stolen clothing, expecting to find kepler and jacobi still speaking, and then perhaps for kepler to suggest that they (he) make something for dinner. instead she finds the two of them spooning on the couch and - well -

the way that kepler has slotted himself behind daniel is eerily similar to how he'd stood behind _her_ in the bathroom. except instead of checking out bruises, he has his hand down jacobi's pants. maxwell freezes where she is, suddenly self-conscious of her clothing - or rather that she wasn't wearing enough. as she stands, watching them and feeling a bit like an intruder, it suddenly dawns on her that in the months that she’s been doing...whatever this is, she’s been staying the night _with_ daniel. jacobi used to stay over by himself, the two of them alone. ipso facto, the two of them probably hadn't had sex this entire time, unless they'd been doing it on goddard property, and she has a hard time believing they’d be that brash.

oops?

kepler notices and reacts first to her presence, extricating his hand from between jacobi's thighs in a way that is polite but not at all apologetic. a half-second later jacobi notices that maxwell is standing there, and instinctively tries to cover himself up. but he quickly realizes that he's already dressed.

"alana - shit, sorry." he sits up all the way, accidentally elbowing kepler in the gut as he does. "sorry, we can stop...or move."

"uhh - ha," maxwell says smartly. she instinctively crosses her arms like she can hide behind them, and eventually she sits down in the armchair, trying not to look embarrassed and trying not to unwittingly say anything rude. "it's fine. we're all adults - you guys do what you need to. or want to."

she wants to say that they shouldn't feel like they have to be abstinent for her sake but maybe that's a little presumptuous and she can guess that it's not a conversation they want to have right now, regardless. they have stuff they want to do.

"sorry. i wanted to warn you," jacobi looks guilty as he gets up from the couch and seeing it immediately makes maxwell feel worse. an ache in her throat. she chews absently on her thumb to try and distract from the feeling, and jacobi elbows kepler again, this time on purpose. "i wanted to have a _conversation_ first."

she waves him off, trying to be understanding. "we still can later."

kepler keeps his mouth shut, but maxwell can see him carefully glancing between her and daniel - paying attention. she can't tell if he's refusing to comment because he just doesn't care or if he's refraining from making an ass of himself. if it’s the latter, she can sympathize with him, truly, but he’s always hard to decipher, that one.

they exit stage left, departing to the bedroom and leaving maxwell very, very alone.

it takes her something like five minutes to stop trying to eat her whole hand out of embarrassment and anxiety, but she does and she stands up from the armchair with a sigh. she's not...thinking anything in particular. no words at least, but she runs scenarios over and over in her head, trying to make a decision. staying here and maybe reading a book (lonely), leaving the apartment probably without saying anything (lonely and guilty), staying here (still lonely), joining them and just trying it (repulsion), staying here (still lonely and maybe a little guilty).

she pulls a random book off of kepler's bookshelf, which admittedly has forcibly acquired a few more books in recent months. both her and daniel have added to it, but this one must be his because she doesn’t recognize it. as she tries to think of a scenario that doesn’t end poorly she glances at the cover. it says _howl_ in large lettering but she can hardly read the rest while her mind races. joining them and watching them (very uncomfortable), joining them and ? (?)

maybe it says something that she's stopped considering anything besides at least walking into the bedroom. it _says_ something convincing to parts of her brain that aren’t wholly consumed with thinking through this, apparently, because unbidden she finds herself walking to the bedroom door, and then opening it.

if she meets anyone’s gaze she might chicken out, so she avoids looking at their faces as she makes her way to the bed. she notices instead that jacobi has his legs around kepler’s waist and kepler - their boss, their commanding officer, and...something else - is bent over him looking like a night terror. no, not a night terror. something nicer, it should be something nicer.

maxwell sits on the edge of the bed and sees in her periphery kepler shifting and pulling jacobi with him to make more room for her on the large bed. after a moment of waiting for her to join them, and her still being stuck, daniel reaches for her and pulls her by the wrist.

she goes willingly, holding the book like a shield or an excuse, and delicately cuddles up to jacobi's shoulder. if she moves slowly, if she holds her breath, maybe nothing will break, nothing will change. 

very quickly jacobi offers his arm as a headrest for her, eager to hug her close when she accepts it. warren after considering his options for a long moment, lowers himself so that he can press a very hesitant and very chaste kiss to her forehead, his hand lightly touching her cheek. it’s affection that she can accept - that she’s used to, maybe not from kepler but definitely from jacobi. she appreciates it immensely.

it's not...bad. she reads from her book, even if she's a little too nervous to really process what it's trying to tell her, she runs a hand through jacobi's hair when she can, and they leave her out of most of it. she’s curious about how much she can handle, and how much they’ll allow. especially kepler. she knows jacobi would allow just about anything, knows him well enough to ignore that, but kepler’s far more...guarded.

still that doesn’t stop her from lightly hitting kepler in the head with her book when she sees him trying to leave dark hickeys on daniel’s already bruised skin.

"we still have to go to work tomorrow," she hisses at him. he laughs at her, but very kindly turns his attention elsewhere, leaving marks where they won't be seen under clothing.

when the two of them are quite finished, they breathe for a few minutes. at least until jacobi sighs and admits he should probably shower. or maybe take a bath. maxwell suggests he do both, since kepler's footing the bill and of course the man threatens to put both of them out on the street.


	4. intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and now for something a little softer

it's raining. 

three hours ago the rain had started as a light misting, and had steadily gotten worse. it hadn't bothered maxwell until she realized that they had to walk about ten miles back in the rain and the mud to the car that they had driven here in. it was back there, waiting for them to beat a hasty retreat back to civilization. 

she was bone tired. after eight and a half hours of trading off spotter and overwatch duty with jacobi, she couldn't see the point in hurling insults at the sky. jacobi, of course, had started complaining as soon as he'd dragged half of his just-in-case gear out of the mud. she couldn't really blame him - it'd be a bitch to clean everything - but she did prefer kepler's companionable silence. though, he was hardly silent by choice, he was just spending his remaining energy concentrating on keeping his cigarette lit while the heavens opened up around him. 

it was an inspiring kind of stubbornness.

he caught her watching him and grinned, the cigarette hanging delicately from his teeth and the sniper rifle pack slung over his shoulder. once again she was reminded just how much he appeared to be like the creature sitting on her chest, stealing her breath, but this time with a little urging she could imagine him a bit more like a wild thing someone had tried to tame. or maybe the other way around. a tame thing made wild. 

maybe that's what they all were. 

four miles into the hike back, they make it to the stretch of one-lane highway that'll lead them back to their car. seven miles in and suddenly jacobi puts his mouth to better use and starts suggesting dinner options. something they can pick up on the way home - because even kepler can't honestly say he'd rather cook than get something to go, can he? 

kepler forfeits his war with the weather, discarding his cigarette into a puddle as he addresses jacobi. "i can, actually. but for your sakes, i'll allow you to buy your own dinners." 

"oh, my hero." maxwell says dryly as daniel groans in the most abject despair. 

"alright, look," he says as he turns around to face down their boss. walking backwards, in this weather, and trying to keep pace with kepler's long legs is a recipe for disaster, but he doesn't seem to care. "we _could_ go home and wait an hour and a half for you to cook something and end up eating at nine, or we could get back and go our separate ways and all have to buy our own dinner, _or_...the last person to the car has to pay -" 

jacobi turns and sprints away. maxwell barely spares kepler a glance, noting the amused expression on his face, before she takes off after him.

"hey!" she shouts after him as he starts to disappear around a bend in the road. "you - _cheater_!" 

the little highway they're following doubles back on itself for about a mile, and maxwell slowly but surely gains ground on jacobi as she chases him. he's just too short for his own good, really, so with enough stamina and a lot of patience she manages to get ahead of him. 

three miles. _three miles_ of running in the rain - and sure, it's a nice way to wind down after being hyper-alert for hours and hours, but it's an exhausting run and it ends with her realizing that the car materializing in the distance already has a lone figure standing next to it. by now she can recognize her boss from almost any distance. 

"who's the cheater now?!" daniel calls from a ways behind her. 

maxwell doesn't reply until she very carefully comes to a stop next to their van, next to a soaked kepler who looks like he's just trekked through a hell of a lot of mud to get here first. he flashes her the GPS on his phone while she doubles over, trying to catch her breath, but she catches his drift. shortcut through the woods. damn him. 

daniel joins them, but doesn't come to nearly as graceful of a stop as she had. instead he crashes into kepler, trying to drag him down while he laughs like an idiot. the two of them stagger, and really the major might have been able to keep the two of them upright if they and the ground weren't wet. he does, however, manage to get jacobi into a headlock before they hit the ground. 

"uncle, uncle," daniel bites out even though he's still flailing, elbowing kepler in the ribs with as much force as he can muster. "you win, you jerk!" 

"alright - enough, i want to go home," maxwell kicks at the two of them, still a little out of breath. "jacobi you're paying, and i'll drive if you two will cut it out." 

they separate after a few more moments of struggle, when jacobi finally stops resisting, and pick themselves up out of the mud. once they climb into the van, any excess energy the three of them have slowly disappears. daniel stretches out in the seats farthest back, settling down for a nap even as he denies it. maxwell calls him an old man as she accepts the keys to the car from kepler, and slides into the driver seat. 

within ten minutes of getting back out onto the road, she hears quiet snoring coming from the back, and exchanges a look with kepler. after an hour of driving, warren unbuckles his seatbelt and makes his way to the backseat, waking jacobi with a kiss and maxwell stops paying attention after that. it's not that she minds it's just that she figures it's better for her waning focus to be spent on driving rather than anything else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry updates have slowed down i dont have a job and my brains trying to drag me into a deep depression xoxo


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> introducing my second favorite character that me and @intearsaboutrobots have crafted for like all of our wolf 359 aus; artemis!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for uhh unhealthy eating habits and unhealhy handling of that lmao

"daniel, i am _not_ putting an entire AI in a missile just so you can blow her up." 

"that's the whole point of what we're doing - maxwell it's an AI guided missile that's what we're supposed to be designing."

"i've _been_ designing an AI guided missile, but i've been designing it to be guided via satellite -" 

"i know!" jacobi cuts her off, pointing angrily at his laptop screen. "but i'm saying it's too slow! the satellite connection is too slow, it's not as reliable, and will turn our missile into a glorified RC monster truck." 

maxwell groans in frustration, digging through a pile of bumwad and papers to find the binder that she'd been given. "goddard satellites are pretty damn fast, jacobi, what are you wa - artemis do you have a digital copy of the proposal? can you pull that up, please? thank you. daniel, what are wanting to do with the missile - are you planning on doing _tricks_ with it?" 

"no!" there's a very small ding as the proposal document appears on the screen against the wall. jacobi stomps over to it and scrolls down past several pages, highlighting lines of text as he goes. "it's supposed to be designed for keeping up with stealth aircraft, manned or unmanned, going mach 4 or faster. it has to keep up, satellite won't cut it. i grabbed these stats and test results for the satellites, and the relay takes too long for stealth or combat maneuvering."

"artemis, turn your ears off!" 

"yes, alana," comes the meek reply from the overhead speakers.

maxwell takes a deep breath as jacobi sits back down at their desk. "i am not putting artemis in a flying bomb, i'm not going to make copies of her and have her get killed over and over." 

"you can sync the separate versi -" 

"no! i'm not traumatizing my AI like that!" 

"make a new one!" jacobi insists. "give it a new AI that you're not attached to." 

"no - no. no. absolutely not." she waves at him dismissively. "i'd rather make advances in satellite technology, fix the relay -"

"we have _two days_ , alana." daniel drops his forehead to the desk, exhausted. they've been having the same argument since midday yesterday, and it's pretty much evening now. "that's not enough time and you're not a satellite technician...or...you know. god, i need more coffee." 

"i could be! i could be a satellite expert -" 

"again, two days. two days."

"al _right_. that's enough." kepler interrupts, shutting the door to the lab forcefully. she hadn't even heard him open it. he has a bag slung over his shoulder and his sleeves rolled up. he must be technically off duty now, but he's still here. maxwell hurries to her computer to reactivate artemis while he sets his bag on the table. 

jacobi doesn't even lift his head to look at kepler. "please tell me you brought coffee." 

"no." he's angry. the high angle of his shoulders and the stern expression he has as he hands maxwell a bottle of water from his bag is evidence enough. she reluctantly accepts. "when and _what_ did you eat last?" 

jacobi sits up straight, frowning. "we definitely ate. something - uh, for lunch."

"pretzels?" maxwell offers when daniel looks at her expectantly. 

kepler sighs at the two of them. "artemis?" 

"three hundred milliliters of instant coffee and forty grams of mini pretzels each. both from the vending machines." she replies, shaming the both of them from the safety of her speakers. "jacobi also dipped his pretzels in the coffee before eating them." 

"hey! you said you wouldn't say anything!" 

"when deemed necessary my programming allows me to withhold information, obfuscate, and lie to any persons excluding a select few." artemis tells him brightly. maxwell merely shrugs, drinking from the bottle she's been given as an excuse to not comment. 

"i've asked artemis to notify me when the two of you go at least thirty hours without significant sources of nutrition." kepler sets down another bottle of water in front of jacobi and then - tupperware? tupperware with food in it. "thirty hours is very generous, but you two idiots still manage to hole up down here for long enough that i have to drive back to work and force you to not die." 

"oh, food - sweet." jacobi stands up to peer into kepler's bag, looking for a fork. "i was worried you brought handcuffs again."

maxwell swipes the other container of whatever it is that he's cooked for them - some kind of pasta. nothing too fancy so as not to offend their delicate fast food palates. it's weirdly nice, but as she and daniel eat in silence kepler starts to use the screen set into the surface of the table they're at, going through all of the designs that they'd come up with so far. she can see him trying to judge their progress, figure out how close they are to finishing without full knowledge of what all of the little tech-y bits of information mean. she can hazard a guess at that being his secondary motivation for coming here. 

she finishes her food before daniel, who keeps pausing to type more notes on his laptop, and then finishes off the water dutifully. the food and water reminds her that she hasn't actually brushed her teeth the entire time that they've been here, so she digs through her jacket pockets to find a dented and sad looking box of gum. kepler pries it from her hand easily. 

"i wouldn't if i were you. you could choke." he tells her, pocketing the gum with a small smile in the corner of his mouth. 

"what? what do you mean choke - i'm not _three_." maxwell tells him as jacobi's eyes widen, mid-drink. 

"oh - _oh_ , you asshole." jacobi tries to sniff his water bottle, mostly empty. 

kepler smiles fully in reply. "now that's not a very nice way to speak to someone trying to save you from starving to death." 

"you drugged us. with the water." he shuts his laptop loudly. "i knew - i thought it tasted weird but i thought it was the food. stupid. how did you even do that? these weren't open!" 

maxwell gapes in horror but mostly surprise. at their boss - their commanding officer and partner - who had apparently decided that the best way to get them out of the lab was to bring them food and then drug them. fuck. the damage is already done though, it's not like she's been poisoned and can demand an antidote. she starts trying to gather up the papers everywhere, putting it all back into files and somewhere safe. "artemis, can you do a backup?" 

"done! laboratory server backup completed in one-point-three milliseconds." the screen on the table goes dark. "i've also engaged the system lockout for one major warren kepler. is there anything else i can do? is this the kind of thing i should alert the medical center for?" 

"no, unfortunately." maxwell shoves all the files into her drawers and waits for the satisfying sound of artemis engaging the mechanical locks before stepping away. she's already dizzy. dammit. "we'll get home fine. just do the closing sequence after we leave and then you can go back to browsing, if you want." 

"neat!" 

"no music through the speakers, artemis." kepler cuts in, one hand on maxwell's shoulder, guiding her to a chair. his hands aren't as angry as his face. "i don't need more people coming to my office and complaining." 

"this unit isn't currently receiving commands from major warren kepler." artemis makes a little dinging sound at him in gleeful defiance.

jacobi and maxwell admonish her in tandem, " _artemis_." 

" _fine_...no music." 

after that, things get fuzzy. she distinctly remembers kepler's arm around her waist, and at some point he asks if he can pick her up and carry her the rest of the way to the car. she doesn't remember her response. 

* * *

neither her nor jacobi wake until early the next morning if maxwell's watch can be believed. a quarter past five. far too early for any reasonable human and yet here she is, lying in kepler's bed with jacobi snoring against her stomach. the sun isn't even up yet, but kepler is noticeably absent. she sits quietly for a moment, trying to decide if she should go back to sleep, at least until inspiration strikes. 

"jacobi. jacobi, wake up. daniel!" she shakes him awake, much to his dismay. "jacobi - okay, no high intelligence AI's, nothing with a developed consciousness, but a deep learning program that artemis could -"

"what?" he's still not quite awake but she can see him trying to catch up. 

"a deep learning program that artemis can manage." 

jacobi sits up, looking around for his laptop. "it'd...probably be easier to fit. the whole thing could be slimmed down which would make it more maneuverable. better for -" 

"deep learning and to train it, um, genetic algorithms the - the neuroevolution -"

"- discarding failed iterations, yeah. that makes a lot more sense when you have multiples. we'd need to change the way the black box works." 

"- and artemis could manage the neuroevolution with the black boxes, if we can get them to talk to her through the satellites." maxwell pulls her phone out of her pocket, where it's been digging into her thigh. they can't exactly update their sketches from here but at the very least she can send suggestions to artemis and maybe she can make some schematic suggestions. 

while she types, she feels jacobi shifting uncomfortably until he finally says, "what?" 

maxwell looks up, following his gaze to where kepler is standing in the doorway looking very much like the cat that got the cream. oh, fantastic. clearly he thinks he's done something - something besides interrupting their work for at least nine or more hours. 

"mister jacobi," kepler says as he starts to roll up his sleeves, "how about some coffee?" 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a bit short but oh well. also some of the tags and warnings may change next chapter. including some for violence.

jacobi is the glue of this...partnership. at least, that's how it is at first. he was the reason that she and kepler tolerated each other. making jacobi happy was a higher priority for both of them - and then, all of the sudden, they need each other. their three different brands of reckless kind of meld and make them passably functional within the walls of goddard futuristics. 

maxwell gets better at this. it's hard to stop seeing kepler as an imposing, treacherous predator - because he is one - and to start seeing him as someone who can be relied on to keep them out of danger they can't handle. to see him as still human, like them. it helps when she gets to see small moments of vulnerability in him. even if she doesn't notice them until afterwards, he does occasionally feel uncertainty, there are holes in his knowledge, and sometimes he gets to talking and she wonders if he cares a little too much. 

 

* * *

 

kepler is standing between an ambassador from lithuania and a high-ranking officer from el salvador. he's dressed to the nines, with a bunch of decorations showing off his fake rank. he blends in well. she supposes that's to be expected, since he's paramilitary posing as military, but the ease with which he slips from english into polish (a language he'd only started learning two months prior) while conversing with the ambassador is what she can't help but begrudge him. 

it was hard enough for her to speak english around people she knew. in fact she'd told jacobi on more than one occasion that her real native language was the code with which she'd first crafted artemis with, but she may have given herself an edge by devising the language herself. she doesn't have that luxury with common speech. 

and she doesn't have daniel here to commiserate. that's probably the worst part of this. he's off somewhere else doing munitions and ballistics-y things while she and kepler have to keep an eye on the party guests and skim information. kepler's much better at this; pinpointing people's weaknesses and using them kindly or not. which is why he's speaking to the polish ambassador from lithuania, and maxwell is sipping a roy rogers hoping she doesn't look the way she feels - like her phone is burning a hole in the awful little clutch she's forced to carry around. 

she's already gotten just about all the information that she can by hacking into the campus' wi-fi. all they have to do now is wait for jacobi. 

speaking of. the earpiece she's wearing, decorated to look like a very expensive bit of jewelry, suddenly turns on with a click. "holy shit. you guys won't believe the kind of firepower these people have. I've seen at least three - no four -"

"klepto," maxwell mutters into her grenadine as daniel continues to ramble about enriched something something 235. she's not listening. she looks to kepler instead and shakes her head at him. between kepler, the information on her phone, and jacobi dawdling elsewhere, she's ready for the night to be over. she wants to go home, put on sweatpants, and hold her own laptop. she's not even allowed to chat with artemis while she waits for jacobi to find something or other. 

"shit. uh, hey give me a sec -" the line cuts out, and maxwell stays as composed and calm as she can while trying to decide what the odds are that daniel would so flippantly leave her hanging if he were in real danger. 

kepler scares her, coming up beside her without any warning, and puts an arm around her to shield her as they speak. 

"how are you?" 

"I don't know," she tells him honestly. 

"have you tried talking to people?" 

"yeah, just a second ago."

"you stopped -" 

maxwell interrupts their conversation about jacobi, starting to pull the phone from her purse, "maybe we should call him. you know how he is he's such a - he has no consideration for anyone else." 

"we should call our...son? he can take care of himself." kepler asks, carefully course correcting in the event that anyone's listening, but he does this while directing her away from the small crowd, over to an empty balcony. "there's no reason to call." 

the only reason she doesn't pull a face when kepler says son is because she's preoccupied with trying to get her phone to connect to her earpiece, that way she can call jacobi and scold him directly. warren stops her, prying the phone from her hand and slipping it into his jacket.

"they have dogs," he tells her. like that's supposed to make her feel better. 

"what!" 

he leans against the stone balustrade, still feigning polite conversation, and gestures for her to join him. she does, reluctantly, chewing on the tips of her fingers as she looks out over the vast grassy field. it almost looks a dark teal in the moonlight. somehow the old castle they're in feels like it's suited for the rolling fields, but a ways out, nestled between a smattering of boulders, are ill-fitted simplistic buildings that are more warehouse-like in appearance. jacobi's supposed to be exploring those, checking in on their business partners, making sure nothing untoward is going on. 

kepler relents, holding out the phone as a dove with an olive branch. "if you have to."

"...no. no, it's okay." 

they stand in companionable silence for a while, maxwell still holding tightly to her drink and kepler with the phone still in his hand. they stay like that until they hear braying in the distance. 


	7. Chapter 6

maxwell regrets doubting the depth of kepler's affection. she had started to come around to him, little by little. he's still an asshole but there is something there. he's not entirely inhuman, he has weaknesses. one of them is an irrational amount of dedication to completing each and every job, and perfectly at that. another...seems to be jacobi. or was.  

daniel jacobi dies. and it's not even while they're on a mission. 

there's no last stand, no long and drawn out gunfight that calls them out to elysian fields, no final confessions of love. they have no transport or emergency evac waiting for them on the sidelines. 

there's a street corner, a pause as kepler puts out a hand to stop both of them, and a sniper. somehow kepler had sensed something. maybe he could see a detail in his peripheral that he hadn't yet fully processed, and he had thrown out his arm to block jacobi, started to grab the denim of maxwell's jacket to pull them both away from the street. 

that's most of what she remembers. some part of her registers all of the blood - some of it kepler's too - the local EMT's trying to help, but through it all, though, warren keeps a tight grip on her jacket, keeping her as close to grounded as she can possibly get while she watches her unconscious partner bleed out and get taken away. she remembers the tight feeling in her chest and the warm hand on her shoulder. 

the only reason kepler and maxwell don't sit in that ambulance is because kepler is hit too. the police, bless them, try to ask a few questions before they realize that they're barking up the wrong tree. they couldn't give any information if they wanted to, anyways.

kepler gets into another ambulance, his side is drenched in blood and he's pale, but he has a stern expression on his face as he sits that makes her suspect he's only tolerating medical attention because it'll get him to the hospital quicker than it would if he drove himself. although he apparently still finds the ambulance useful because once they're driving, much to the EMT's chagrin, kepler starts pulling out medical supplies and handing them to alana. he gestures vaguely at her knees but she ignores him. 

when they get to the hospital, kepler walks into it of his own accord, still pulling maxwell through the small crowd. he steps up to the closest resembling-knowledgeable nurse, bleeding and looking about as pissed as he sounds, and intimidates them into being her guide to jacobi. and after that's done, he hesitates. she can tell he's trying to decide if he needs to go with her. some of the hospital staff urge him to lay down and get stitches, and that's how alana leaves him; stiff, injured, grim, and silent. he watches her go with a look on his face that would be hard to read for the average person, so it's impossible for her. 

the rest of the afternoon is a blur. or at least the room around her is as she waits anxiously near the OR. she keeps it together for as long as she can but when they stick daniel in the ICU and she sees him for the first time - unconscious, injured, grim, and silent - she finally crashes against the hospital bed. kepler joins her an hour later, standing at attention beside her. 

* * *

when cutter finally joins them in the hospital, jacobi is pretty far gone. maxwell has the great displeasure of overhearing kepler talking to their boss, a discussion about odds, cost, usefulness after such an unfortunate event, and if only he'd been taken to the Goddard facilities maybe his chances would have been better. 

she requests a copy of his charts, and holds them tight until they're crumpled, and damp. 

warren comes back after a time and stays by her side, a hand on her elbow, until they go home. 

* * *

the first thing she does once she gets kepler's door open is throw herself into the open arms of the couch, every piece of her exhausted and begging to be buried. she presses her face into a pillow and cries quietly so as not to disturb her host, who in turn meanders around his home putting things away and cleaning what's already clean. eventually, once maxwell calms down, she realizes they've both been very quiet and still. warren is leaning against his bookshelf, whiteknuckling a glass of what is surely whiskey. 

braver in her grief, she whispers to him, "you need to mourn -" 

"I am." he tells her sharply, cutting her off just a little, and then walks away. into the belly of his house. 

she follows, tracking the metallic and pear smell to the en suite bathroom, where she finds the door left open and kepler peeling his shirt off. breathing harshly through his nose, warren ignores the limitations an injury like his should place on him, and stretches his arms. blood spots the bandages around his shoulder, and out of concern maxwell steps through the doorway, politely averting her gaze away from his face. 

this isn't a line she's crossed before, but a thought perches at the forefront of her brain and refuses to leave. warren had looked after her for a long time - in his own, extremely abrasive way - and they had both looked after daniel as well as they could. 

she holds his wrist, carefully trying to keep him from hurting himself more, and draws her other hand up his forearm. he's a machine, and a person, like her AI. there's something about how he had been programmed, taught, that had made him so especially well-suited for his position in Goddard Futuristics. she stares hard at the faint scars on warren kepler's arms, hoping to see something within them. "you didn't deserve these. nobody deserves this."

he doesn't reply. he might be insulted, but maxwell hopes she knows him better than that, and a wave of guilt crashes over her. 

"I didn't - it's not easy for me...to understand people. but I should have known better than to doubt him, you know? he was better at people sometimes. I just - I mean I think I owe you some kind of apology. you're an asshole, uh, but I - I think you care. even if you -" 

warren pulls his arm away, but it's careful and slow, and he touches her shoulder in acknowledgement before turning to the shower. 

"oh, absolutely not. I heard that doctor giving you explicit instructions about taking very careful sponge baths, you old man." maxwell slides past him and blocks his path. "if you think for a second I'm going to just let you be stupid just because you're sad - because we're both sad - then you're...wrong. you're going to take pain meds, you're going to change the bandages regularly, I'm going to make you food -" 

his face twisted up into somewhere between amusement and disgust, warren sighs. "alana maxwell -"

"- and you're not just hopping into showers all willy nilly. and then, once you're healed you can go back to work and you can kephound all day. track down whoever the fuck that was, and kill them and anyone they work for. those are the rules. we've got each others backs. yeah?"

it looks like it physically pains him to do so, but after a moment warren nods tersely to her. 

"good."

"you're not touching my kitchen." 

"no, it's too late. you already agreed. I'm making...biscuits." 

* * *

four months later, after they've fallen into an uneasy routine of normalcy, with only one week where things were strange because kepler was refusing to speak to her after crying for less than a minute on her shoulder, cutter walks into maxwell's lab. he does his usual song and dance, delivering a few backhanded, excessively cheerful compliments as he surveys the piles of tech that she's collected and built piecemeal, insults artemis, and offers a case to her. then, as he's walking towards the exit, as if he had forgotten, he turns around. 

"oh! alana." he grins at her. "i have something I think you might be interested in." 

she continues working on her laptop, chipping away at some code that she needs to finish, so cutter has to approach and hold his hand out in front of her face. he's casually proffering an insignificant-looking thumbdrive to her. it's very plain; white with the small green and blue Goddard logo on one side. 

"what's this?" she asks, not quite curious. 

"I know how close you were with the late daniel jacobi. so, I thought it might be a nice little trinket to remember him by. it's - well. I don't want to spoil the surprise." he unceremoniously dumbs the drive into her hand, says a few cheerful goodbyes, and then he's gone. as soon as the door shuts behind him, maxwell is uncapping the drive and fumbling, shoving it into her computer. viruses be damned she needs to know whats on this. 

and it's - well it's a lot. there's only two files. one is a simple text file, with some labeling information. it's tagged as one of pryce's projects, and at the top it reads: 

Subject 28 - Daniel K Jacobi  
Identification Number N1434  
Capture Date: August 9th, 2013

there's more information, detailing his background and his position as a special intelligence officer. maxwell skims through it, but none of it holds answers. and when she opens the second file she gets - numbers? tons and tons of numbers. there must be thousands of pages of it, but none of it is really parseable. she doesn't know what it's for. 

with some trepidation and rising anger, she asks artemis to find the project files for whatever this is. "just tell me what this is for." 

there's a small ding and artemis displays some of the files on the table. "a...a complete neurological pathway map, for the purpose of recording and saving that information which is contained within the previously safeguarded human mind, especially those that contain information relevant to - this is...alana, this is..." 

maxwell yanks the drive out of her laptop with growing anger and horror. her best friend. her partner. fit on a fucking usb drive? they had - Goddard had quite literally taken everything from jacobi. shaking with righteous anger, alana holds the drive close to her heart, standing in the middle of her lab, trying to swallow her grief whole. she can hear distantly artemis beeping comfortingly at her and closing the project files in the hopes that it might help. 

after a few minutes, maxwell straightens and wipes the tears from her eyes. "artemis. please open a new project file." 

"designation?" 

"designation...apollo." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there! sorry it's been so long. I got lost in the weeds of things. uhh, anyways. this is/was supposed to be a two part series with this being the prequel, but it's kind of hard to write for w359 now that it's ended. so I may or may not get to it. apologies, friends!


End file.
